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Designing the Leagues of Votann – Jes Goodwin and Andy Clark in Conversation

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The latest faction to join the fray in Warhammer 40,000 are even now preparing for final approach. The Leagues of Votann – for so long thought lost in the warp or some Tyranids’ tummies – are about to arrive. But what has it taken to get here? 

The Warhammer Community team sat down with two of the big brains behind the new range,* to find out how the Kin came to be.

“It was an incredibly exciting opportunity”, explains Andy Clark, who was the lead background writer on the project. “We worked on developing, building up, expanding, and nuancing for as long as I can remember ever doing with a project. It was a hugely collaborative process. 

LoVDesigns Sept08 Terrain1

“I can honestly say that this was one of the most exciting and inspiring factions I’ve ever worked on, as well as one of the greatest challenges. The amount of time spent working on cultural elements – how their society might work, their language, their naming conventions, and what those, in turn, would tell us about the Kin as a race… The creative buzz as we all ran these sorts of things past one another was absolutely inspiring.”

“Working on the core concepts, establishing the base design vocabulary, and then collaborating with the designers, writers, and ‘Eavy Metal on the background, the colour schemes, and the icons made it a bit of an epic – especially in the midst of COVID”, adds Jes Goodwin.

LoVDesigns Sept08 Terrain2

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

“While there are certainly traditional Warhammer dwarf elements to the Leagues of Votann, they are very distinctly their own thing instead of simply being dwarfs in space”, says Andy. “People’s mileage may vary – there will be hobbyists out there who really want to lean into that theme, and there’s room in the background for them to do so. 

LoVDesigns Sept08 Einhyr

“Equally, though, this excellent model range deserves to be something fresh, exciting, and fully realised, rather than simply leaning on a set of existing tropes and – dare we say it – clichés. On that basis, wherever we included a traditional dwarfen element, we were careful to give it a gothic sci-fi reimagining and ensure it felt organic within this millennia-old spacefaring society.”

“As Andy says, they needed to be more than just sci-fi dwarfs, in the same way that Aeldari are more than just elves in space", Jes continues. “But we wanted to draw from the dwarfen archetype and honour some parts of the old range. Where dwarfs are about mining and smithing, the Kin are about resource acquisition and manufacturing on a grand scale – dwarfs through the epic lens of Warhammer 40,000, if you will.”

LoVDesigns Sept08 Art

Core Concepts

“The Ancestor Cores were one of the first concepts established, along with their links to earlier periods of Terran history”, explains Jes. “They formed the bedrock for subsequent development. The angular decorative elements and runic motifs are similarly a callback to dwarfen runes. Their use increases as you go up the ranks, helping the elites stand out on the battlefield. While the basic look could be called utilitarian, these designs helped allude to the ancient nature and craftsmanship of some of their wargear.

LoVDesigns Sept08 Runes

“We tried to make the suits and vehicles reflect the idea of exploring and exploiting hostile environments – Victorian mariners, Antarctic explorers, deep sea surveyors, moon landings, space exploration, and so on. Obviously the hostile environments to be found out there in the galaxy are rather more hostile than here on Earth…”

Gearing Up

“The Leagues exo-armour went through several iterations”, Jes continues. “Trying to evoke the feel of early Terminator suits while making them their own thing was a bit of a balancing act. In the end I looked back at a very early Terminator model I made in the eighties, before the design that we are familiar with today was set. The huge pauldrons, exposed spine, and inset bowl helmet are from there. 

LoVDesigns Sept08 Hearthguard

“The Hearthkyn helmets also took a bit of refining, as we wanted a visor element but had to fit several layers in for that. And with only so much room on the model, we then had to fit a head in…

“The weapons they have in common with the Imperium hint at their shared technological ancestry, but differ subtly in execution – while the style of the Ironkin and COGs obviously has a resonance with some of the more ancient elements of the Adeptus Mechanicus forces.”

Fond Favourites

“I couldn’t pick one favourite – I’m indecisive at the best of times – but for me the models that are the most uniquely Kin make me the happiest”, says Andy. “The Ironkin with their wonderful blend of retro sci-fi and rugged, chunky engineering, the Hearthguard in their classic-reimagined exo-armour, and the Grimnyr, who mingle archaic and science-fantasy aesthetics. Those tremendously cool-looking (and frag-tacular) Brôkhyr Thunderkyn…”

LoVDesigns Sept08 Thunderkyn

“I do like a basic trooper, but then I love a robot, and a space wizard and, and, and…” agrees Jes. “I try to think about the design of the range as a whole rather than individual models. We’re giving a varied sampler of the different factions within the race, with room for expansion… There’ll be more to come – as the Kin themselves know, the work is never done.”

The Leagues of Votann will arrive for pre-order any minute now. Check back on this very website to find out when, and sign up to the newsletter to stay on the cutting edge of Kin news.

* For an in-depth look at the design behind one specific unit, check out our other interview with Jes and Andy on the Hernkyn Pioneers.